A signature, commonly referred to as a sig or siggy, is a block of text and/or pictures appearing at the bottom of most posts, private messages, and profiles.
Common Contents[]
Signatures commonly contain:
- Pictures , including drawings by the user, graphics purchased using gold, dream avatars, drawings of the user's avatar, banners, and fanart:
- Randomly generated pictures, often containing a combination of the above.
- Image maps, consisting of a graphic with many different clickable areas containing links.
- If in the GD, probably a picture of the person's IRL self or, at least, who they claim to be.
- Pleas for gold, help on quests, or items.
- Links to a user's threads, guilds, [profile], or website.
- Favorite quotes from pop culture or other users.
- A user's comments.
- A Signature Shoutbox.
Restrictions on Signatures[]
There are a few restrictions on signatures. These are mostly size restrictions to benefit users with slow internet connections. The first is that the total size of images cannot exceed 500 pixels both in height and width. The total file size also cannot exceed 100,000 bytes (Note that this is different from 100Kb as 100,000 bytes is around 97kb). Text-wise, there is also a 255 character limit for signature text, the exception being for links but it won't get your signature removed because the signature box won't let you go over the limit. In addition, all pictures and comments must follow the Gaia Terms of Service.
The penalty for breaking any of the above mentioned rules is temporary disablement of the user's signature. However, for a certain amount of gold, a user's signature can be reactivated. This amount increases by each offense.
When a signature was disabled by a moderator, Gaians had to visit the edit profile page to re-enable their signature for a cost. The cost for re-enabling a blocked signature would go up. This penalty is enforced to avoid abuse. The costs to re-enable signatures are as follows:
1st time - 10 gold
2nd time - 100 gold
3rd time - 1,000 gold
4th time - 10,000
5th time and above - 20,000g, 40,000g, 80,000g, etc....